For some reason, buying Poland Spring 3-liter bottles of water at Walmart has become, at least in my case, an Olympic event.
I go through a bottle of the water, which is slightly less than a gallon, a day, so I usually buy eight per week (an extra one for good measure). At the moment, the bottles are cheaper at Walmart than anywhere else in my area, so I buy my water there…or at least I try to.
At the Walmart where I shop, the aforementioned water not only is on the very top shelf way up in the fluorescent lightning somewhere, it’s also pushed so far back, it's barely visible from the floor. So even if I were as tall as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, I’d still need seven-foot arms to reach it.
There is a sign warning customers not to attempt to climb the shelves, which I assume was put there because customers actually felt the need to try to climb the shelves, for obvious reasons…that apparently aren’t obvious to Walmart.
As
a result, my shopping always is delayed because of my inability to reach the
water. I’m nearly 5’7” tall, and when I’m shopping, customers often ask me if I
can reach things for them. But I can’t come close to helping anyone, including
myself, when the items are the Poland Spring 3-liter bottles. 
If you look up at the juice bottles on top,
the water I buy is barely visible directly
below them.
My primary tactic for receiving assistance usually involves hanging around in the water aisle until I see a customer over six feet tall rounding the corner. Then I begin grunting and leaping up at the shelf until that customer notices me and my dilemma and hopefully takes pity on me and offers to get the water for me…before I dislocate some essential body part.
There have been many times, however, when every customer who walked up the water aisle was shorter than I was. So after 10 minutes of hanging around with no one helping me, I’d set off in search of an employee. When I finally found one, somewhere in the men’s underwear department, I would explain my problem and ask if someone could help me in the water aisle.
This always resulted in the employee, no matter how tall, walking back to the water aisle with me and standing there, hands planted on his or her hips, and staring up at the top shelf before saying, “Hmmm. Guess I’ll have to go out back and find a ladder.”
Meanwhile, the “keep refrigerated” foods in my cart rapidly would be transforming into fertility clinics for salmonella bacteria.
The clerk eventually would return with a stepladder, set it up and climb it, then ask me, “How many?”
“Eight, please.”
The water would be handed down to me one at a time, then the clerk would climb back down and carry the ladder away – and never think to pull the stock forward so maybe, just maybe, the next customer could reach it.
I honestly can say that only one employee of about 20 who have helped me in the past few years, actually thought to pull the stock forward.
One time, the clerk who arrived to assist me was an elderly woman who couldn’t have been more than five feet tall and she was struggling to carry the ladder. I helped her set it up, and as she began to climb it, I said, “Why don’t I do that for you?” mainly because I didn’t want to be the reason for her plunging to her death.
She quickly informed me that it was against the store’s policy for customers to climb anything.
Another time, the customer who took pity on me as I struggled to reach the water was a young woman with a very athletic-looking body. She was about my height, so when she said, “Let me help you with that,” I wondered how she was going to be able to reach the water if I couldn't.
Simple. She decided to ignore the “do not climb the shelves” sign and climbed them. But when she arrived at her destination, she discovered her arms weren’t long enough to reach back far enough across the top shelf to even touch the water.
A tall male customer, who’d apparently been watching us, rushed over when he saw her clinging to the shelf, and said, “I can get that for you,” with a smile.
To his shock (and mine), she looked at him and practically growled, “Do I look helpless? I can do this myself!”
His mouth fell open and he walked off.
I began to understand the reason why so many women complain that chivalry is dead nowadays. Men probably fear for their lives when they offer to help them.
The young woman finally climbed down and said to me, “I’ll be right back.”
She returned with a new broom from the housewares department, then climbed the shelves again and used the handle to slide the bottles to the edge of the shelf.
"I told you I could do it myself!" she said to me, looking smug.
Just last week when I went shopping, I had the same problem with the water yet again – which, or course, was no surprise. The bottles, however, weren’t pushed as far back as usual, so I made a genuine attempt to jump up and try to grab one. No luck. I made a second attempt. Still no luck.
I hadn’t realized until he spoke that a customer had been watching me.
“Need help?” the man, who was about 5’6” asked.
I figured he must have some secret method for reaching the top shelf that I wasn’t aware of.
He leapt up at the shelf a couple times, without even coming close to the water, then, looking embarrassed, said, “Sorry. I can’t reach it, either.”
I thanked him and set off to find a clerk…who went out back and got the trusty old stepladder, then climbed it and handed eight waters down to me…and didn’t pull any of the stock forward.
So I’ve resigned myself to the fact that unless I am kidnapped and tortured on a Medieval stretching rack, I’m probably going to have to keep suffering through this water-retrieving ritual indefinitely.
But
on the bright side, at least I’m getting some regular exercise without needing a gym membership.
# # #
Sally Breslin is an
award-winning syndicated humor columnist who has written regularly for
newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several
novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science fiction.
Contact her at: sillysally@att.net
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